


the sound of silence

by kelidahauk



Series: crow black dreams [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Communication, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Getting Together, Hate to Love, I Love You, Injury Recovery, Intimacy, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, Lack of Communication, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Protective Kageyama Tobio, Romance, Sexual Tension, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Song fic, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Tsukishima Kei is a Mess, foes to hoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25542211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelidahauk/pseuds/kelidahauk
Summary: Tobio slips up behind Kei, who is wearing his headphones and singing.It’s the most beautiful and the most awful and the most wonderful and the most horrific thing Tobio has ever heard in his life, and his heart bursts and breaks in turns.  Oblivious to Tobio’s presence, Kei types a report, crooning off-key to whatever is pumping over his headphones.This is the moment, the singular moment, when Tobio realizes that he loves him endlessly.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Series: crow black dreams [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845355
Comments: 34
Kudos: 172





	the sound of silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Citlalcoatl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citlalcoatl/gifts).



> I'm taking a break from our regularly scheduled smut to give you something soft. I don't know what happened. I fully intended to write some hotness and the feels caught me instead.
> 
> Important note: In this series, you may have noticed that Tobio struggles with speaking. He suffered from selective mutism for several years as a child, after watching the brutal murder of his parents. This fic explores the concept of speech, sound, and communication in their developing relationship.

Tsukishima’s loft is cold and silent. The walls are white-painted brick, the floors and doors and cabinets a pale bamboo, the furniture soft and gray. The entire south wall is composed of windows that let in moonlight and starshine and the glimmering glow of the bustling Tokyo nightlife. It’s immensely comforting to Tobio, the cold and the silence: like his targets when he finishes his jobs, like the graves they’ll be buried in when their remains are eventually discovered.

Tsukishima is also cold and silent, wrapped in blankets on the couch, the bruises on his face dark like shadows, his skin paler than pale. This is not comforting to Tobio, who has been tasked by Suga-san to take care of him. It would be better to have him in a bed, but that’s upstairs, and when Tobio muttered that he was going to carry him, Tsukishima had balked— _The couch, please, I just want to sit on the couch._ Tobio didn’t know Tsukishima knew the word “please.” He feels like he has to comply when it is used against him, a razor-sharp weapon, like the knives that carved Tsukishima up.

Tobio is sitting at the end of the couch, and Tsukishima’s feet are in his lap. He allows it, because he’s worried he’s going to die on him. Suga-san would not be happy if Tsukishima died under Tobio’s protection. So he allows the feet on his lap, and he tucks the blanket under them, and he even wraps his hands around them to try to thaw the ice. Tsukishima lost a lot of blood. Tsukishima is freezing. Tobio has been frozen for years, now. 

Tobio sits in the darkness and watches as Tsukishima falls asleep in the pale moonlight. The only sound in the cold loft is the raggedness of pain-drawn breaths, and Tobio listens while Tsukishima’s lungs serenade him throughout the night. He does not die. Tobio does not care, but he is glad. 

Time passes, and the loft remains cold, but sound returns to it as Tsukishima recovers. His voice is sharp and irritable. He is a poor patient. Soft clinking comes from the kitchen as Tobio chops vegetables and cooks rice for him. Water boils with a hiss. Tobio hisses like an angry cat, his hackles raised, his back arched.

Tsukishima starts to talk to Tobio, and when Tobio doesn’t answer, he talks _at_ Tobio, instead. He asks a lot of questions and Tobio has no answers. He prattles on about nothing and everything, all at once. The loft is no longer comforting. It is too loud, and jarring, and Tobio wishes Tsukishima would just _hurry the fuck up and recover, already,_ so he can go back to his regular work. Tobio misses the quiet.

Tsukishima talks entirely too much. He’s gotten used to Tobio’s silence, to his one-word, single-phrase responses. They don’t phase him, nor do they shut him up. He still puts his feet up on Tobio’s lap, and when Tobio pushes them away, he prods Tobio’s thighs with his toes until he relents. Tobio no longer falls asleep to Tsukishima’s ragged breathing because his wounds are healing and he’s in less pain and because there’s always a movie playing on the television. 

When Tobio cringes at the noise, Tsukishima compromises. He turns the volume down low, so that it’s just a soft background hum, switching the subtitles on. They watch the movies and read the subtitles together in silence. Tobio is relieved that he’s not expected to talk for the duration of the show. 

The soft glow from the television illuminates the loft and Tsukishima’s eyes gleam as he watches, transfixed, like an overgrown child in rumpled dinosaur pajamas who’s snuck out of bed and is doing something he isn’t supposed to be doing. Tobio is his partner in crime. They share a bowl of strawberries that Tobio washed and cut in the sink, their fingertips dyed red.

🌛👑🌜

One day, he catches Tsukishima watching him instead of the movie. Tobio turns to face him, his expression irritable, but he doesn’t speak. Tobio very rarely speaks. It’s hard to form words. They get stuck in his throat and they trip on his lips and it’s overall just such an awkward and frustrating experience that he finds the whole situation needless. Once upon a time he could speak easily, he remembers, before he watched his warm and loud and lively parents dissolve in a spray of blood under a rain of bullets. 

Tobio could use his words before he learned that silence lets you hide, lets you live. Now he knows that his hands, wrapped around the barrel of a gun, can generally do all the talking he needs. He only talks when he has to, when he can give single-word answers to direct questions. Nothing more is necessary; it’s superfluous, like the rest of the world. The only noise he needs is the sharp crack of his gun, the pounding of his feet against the pavement, the sirens wailing in the distance. That is the symphony of Tobio’s life and he blocks out everything else with utmost prejudice.

Tsukishima pulls his cell phone from the pocket of his godawful dinosaur pajamas and focuses on it, his brow furrowed, his face glowing with the light of the screen. Tobio feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. Perhaps Suga-san has decided he can be done with this idiotic assignment. Tobio opens his messages, seeking salvation, but finds hell.

**Current Burden [10:21p]:  
** What do you think about the movie?

Tobio shoots Tsukishima an incredulous look, followed up by a glare. There is no sanctity in this loft; even his phone is at Tsukishima's loquacious mercies. Tobio is at his limit. He won't stand for it. He shakes his head, fiercely. _Don’t speak. Fuck you and your fucking text message._ He pockets his phone and stares at the television in silence, glowering. The phone vibrates again and again. Tsukishima’s toes prod his thigh, but he keeps his mouth shut. At that small mercy, Tobio gives in. He looks at the phone again.

**Current Burden [10:22p]:  
** Don’t ignore me, motherfucker.

 **Current Burden [10:22p]:  
** I’ll stop talking to you if you respond here. Deal?

 **Current Burden [10:23p]:  
** ‘Thanks, Tsukishima, it’s a deal!’ Alright! Isn’t this movie great?

 **Current Burden [10:23p]:  
** Puss in Boots is my favorite. Because of the sword, obv.

Tobio types. It’s a lot easier to type than talk. The stupid block between his brain and his mouth doesn’t fit between his brain and his hands; that’s what makes him such a good killer. His hands always work, even when his voice doesn’t. His fingers are deft as he swipes out the words. 

**Me [10:24p]:  
**The donkey reminds me of Hinata.

Across from him, Tsukishima bursts into laughter. It’s the loudest, warmest sound the loft has ever experienced. Somehow, it doesn’t hurt Tobio’s ears. Tobio feels his face grow hot and he purposefully doesn’t look at Tsukishima. The phone buzzes in his hands.

**Current Burden [10:25p]:  
** If I’m Puss in Boots and Hinata’s Donkey, then you’re Shrek. Just a frowny-faced ogre who doesn’t want to leave his swamp. ****

 **Me [10:26p]:  
** You think so? Hmm. But I’ve been living with you for awhile now. ****

 **Current Burden [10:27p]:**   
I kind of feel bad for Shrek. He was happy in his swamp. He didn’t want to leave, he had to leave. I’m sorry you’ve had to move into my swamp. I hope it hasn’t been completely awful. ****

 **Me [10:29p]:  
**I guess it hasn’t. Could be worse. Or maybe you’re not as much of an asshole when you’re wounded.

It’s the most words Tobio and Tsukishima have exchanged the entire time they’ve known each other, and Tobio’s been living with him for well over a month now, working with him for longer. He’s never engaged in a text-based conversation like this; the orders he’s gotten from Suga-san have been brief and terse. He feels his lips twitch and realizes with a sort of distant horror that he’s smiling. He turns his head away so Tsukishima won’t see if he dares look.

**Current Burden [10:31p]:  
** Maybe I’m not much of an asshole at all.

 **Current Burden [10:31p]:**   
That’s a lie. I’m definitely an asshole. I couldn’t even keep a straight face typing that.

Tobio huffs, contains his own laughter. He sneaks a peek at Tsukishima, who is very busily _not_ looking at Tobio, but watching the movie and his phone at the same time. He is, indeed, smiling.

**Me [10:32p]:  
**At least you’re self-aware. ****

 **Current Burden [10:33p]:**   
I am exceedingly self-aware. By the way, there’s a total of five Shrek movies. Do you want to watch the third one tomorrow? ****

 **Me [10:34p]:  
** You could have worse ideas.

Tsukishima’s loft is quiet again, and peaceful. It is starting to warm up. Now the sunlight pours in from the windows, thawing the frost. It shines on Tsukishima’s golden hair and turns it into a blazing halo. The distance between them shrinks as their phones vibrate soothingly, silent conversations held on the couch as silly, inconsequential movies play quietly in the background.

**Tsukki [5:43p]:  
** What’s for dinner?

 **Me [5:44p]:  
** Curry’s in the fridge. Just heat it up. If you can manage that, at least.

 **Tsukki [5:44p]:  
** If the house burns down, you only have yourself to blame.

 **Me [5:45p]:  
**I think I could escape through the window in time.

 **Tsukki [5:46p]:  
** I ordered a grocery delivery for tomorrow. I got you some more milk. Don’t shoot the delivery guy.

 **Me [5:47p]:  
**You did? Did you order the strawberry type too?

 **Tsukki [5:49p]:  
** I did. I also ordered chocolate because chocolate is the best. And I got you some of those yogurts you like. And a cheesecake with strawberries. I like cheesecake, you like strawberries, maybe we’ll both enjoy this.

 **Me [5:52p]:  
**If you ordered real food too… tomorrow I’ll cook again. If you’re not tired of it yet.

 **Tsukki [5:54p]:  
** Do you have any idea how I ate before you moved in? I won’t get tired of it. I’m going to get fat with all your cooking.

 **Me [5:55p]** :  
Good. You were too skinny. Even Hinata could snap you like a twig.

 **Tsukki [5:56p]:  
** I’m a lot tougher than I look.

He is tough. Tobio is impressed he survived; he was cut to ribbons, and Tobio remembers how he thought he would die. He is glad, now, just a little, that he didn’t. Tsukishima is still a real shit patient, though, even if his company is better. He works too hard and sleeps too little and insists on going out on jobs where he rips his stitches and delays the healing process. He drinks too much and only eats if Tobio feeds him. One night, when he sneaks out, Tobio decides he’s sick of his self-destructive bullshit. This time, he doesn’t communicate through text. His fists speak for him. Tsukishima’s lips shut him up.

Kei’s loft is no longer cold at all. It’s almost unbearably warm, burning, and Tobio is smoldering. He’s so hot for Kei and Kei’s so hot for him and they’re both a little surprised when the place doesn’t go up in flames around them. They don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. They let their fingers and their lips and their tongues and every square inch of flesh do the talking for them. They don’t need touch screens when they can touch each other and understand exactly what goes unsaid.

🌛👑🌜

Kei wears headphones while he works. His laptop balances on his thighs, and his headphones perch on his yellow curls, and he props his feet up on the coffee table now because Tobio sits too closely to serve as a foot rest these days. Their thighs touch and their knees bump. Tobio reads one of the hundreds of books Kei owns, learning more words he can test out on Kei’s tongue.

The headphones are new. Tobio reaches out and touches them where they rest like a crown on a bed of gold. Kei’s fingers pause on the keys, and he gives a questioning look that Tobio reflects right back at him. 

“Music helps me concentrate,” Kei says simply, but his face flushes with color. 

Tobio considers this, this radical concept that sound can focus the nebulous rather than make the world splinter in discord. He shrugs, flips a page, and leaves Kei to the cacophony and his work. Tobio is touched by Kei’s careful consideration. Kei has been working this whole time under less-than-optimal conditions for Tobio’s comfort. It pisses him off that he feels touched. Kei is an asshole. Tobio is an asshole. Assholes don’t do _touching_ things for each other.

They spend so much time together, in their warm and quiet and comfortable loft, that they have to relearn how to be apart. When Tobio comes home, calling out a silent _tadaima_ with his soul that never goes unanswered, he’s surprised to hear noise from the vicinity of the couch. He leaves his shoes in the genkan and slips up behind Kei, who is wearing his headphones and singing. 

It’s the most beautiful and the most awful and the most wonderful and the most horrific thing Tobio has ever heard in his life, and his heart bursts and breaks in turns. Oblivious to Tobio’s presence, Kei types a report, crooning off-key to whatever is pumping over his headphones. 

He’s singing in English, which Tobio speaks worse than he speaks Japanese, which is to say _not at all_ , but Kei’s fluent. Tobio knows enough to know that he’s fluently butchering whatever he’s singing along with, but his head bobs and his toes wiggle in time to the beat and he looks so goddamn happy that Tobio can feel his frozen heart thawing. It sounds like he’s singing his own name and his fingers flow across the keyboard, typing effortlessly. This is the moment, the singular moment, when Tobio realizes that he loves him endlessly. 

Tobio looms over him, fast, silent, and Kei turns in time to have his jaw seized, to have his lips crushed. He reels back in his shock, headphones knocked askew, and Tobio can hear the tinny beat as heat rises in both their faces. Kei blinks up at him and Tobio’s on the couch now, picking up and setting the laptop aside, causing Kei’s toes to curl instead of wiggle.

“What—” Kei starts, and stops.

“You’re _singing_ ,” Tobio says, like that explains everything. It explains nothing. Kei flushes darker, like he’s ashamed.

“Sorry. I lost track of time,” Kei says apologetically, and Tobio’s suddenly furious at him and at himself and at the world for keeping these secrets from him.

“ _S_ _ing to me,_ ” he orders, and Kei’s mouth hangs open in shock. “You were _singing your name.”_

Kei laughs, then, and smooths Tobio’s soft black shirt over his chest, running his fingers across his shoulders and over his heart to settle low on his abdomen. Tobio clenches his muscles reflexively and Kei sighs, digging his fingers in just the way he’s learned Tobio likes. He’s learned a lot of things over these months, and he’s learning more with each passing minute, because _everyone_ knows how much Tobio hates noise, but he’s asking Kei to sing for him when Kei can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Kei’s metaphorical picture is posted at every karaoke bar in Tokyo with the warning _do not listen: your ears will bleed._

“I’m not singing ‘Kei’,” he says, his eyes liquid gold as turns them on Tobio. “It’s the letter ‘K,’ not my name. The song is called ‘Special K.’ You know, like the drug. Ketamine.” He turns off the headphones and turns down the volume on the laptop and softly, in shitty quality but better than his own voice, the music spills from the computer’s tiny speakers.

Tobio listens, hears: _I’ll describe the way I feel: you’re my new Achilles heel. Can this savior be for real? Or are you just my seventh seal? No hesitation, no delay. You come on just like Special K._ He has no fucking clue what he’s listening to but he’s entranced by the melody. His fingers tap on Kei’s forearms in time with the music.

He repeats, “Special Kei,” his accent thick and his voice soft and rough, like it’s begging to be dusted off and used. His very own drug of choice laughs delightedly, cups his jaw in his delicate, strong hands, kisses him soundly. The fingers smooth fine silky hair out of his eyes, ghost across his temples, and curl around the back of his neck, where they interlock.

Kei translates the lyrics, and Tobio listens in wonder as he explains. 

“You’re _my_ Achilles heel,” Tobio declares, his lips on Kei’s neck. 

“Your _current burden,_ ” Kei corrects him, his tone sarcastic, but Tobio knows he doesn’t mean it. Tobio doesn’t mean it anymore, either.

“You are,” he points out, and Kei listens with clear surprise on his face while Tobio practically monologues like he’s starring in a goddamn Shakespearean tragedy. “You snuck up on me. You are— _an agent of chaos_. I can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard I try. You make me _fucking crazy_. It’s like I’m—”

Tobio stops speaking, losing the words for a moment. It happens. Instead, he moves his hands through the air in a manner that’s so similar to Hinata’s that Kei has to smile. Tobio makes fists, then splays his fingers out. 

“Flying, but crashing, but flying still. It’s stupid. _You’re stupid—_ ” he pokes his pointer finger into Kei’s chest, right over his heart, and then jerks the thumb back at himself, “—and _I’m_ stupid. _This_ is stupid.” He waves his hand emphatically, encompassing this whole scene.

Kei sings, violently off-key, “ _I never ever wanna crash,”_ and Tobio nods. He may not understand the English, but he gets the gist of the meaning now. He rises a little and Kei leans down a little and they fit together perfectly, their foreheads resting against each other. There’s no escaping gravity. He’s crashing. Kei’s crashing. The world is crashing. 

“A lot of songs use drugs as a metaphor for love,” Kei offers, drawing back after a moment. He shifts, and Tobio slides onto the cushion next to him, moving the headphones out of the way. Kei picks the laptop up and scrolls to a different song. This one pulsates, dark and heavy and industrial, and Tobio feels his heart pounding with it. Kei sings along with the chorus, unashamed as his voice fails to even come close to harmonizing with the sultry tones of the original artist. He pauses the app before it can autoplay the next song. Tobio catches sight of the playlist. _Tobio,_ it’s named.

“Without you everything just falls apart. My blood just wants to say hello to you. My soul is so afraid to realize how very little there is left of me. And I want you. You are the perfect drug,” Kei whispers in Tobio’s ear, translating, and it’s such a blatant declaration of love, sorted under the playlist labeled _Tobio,_ that he’s shocked into silence again. He laces his fingers through Kei’s and squeezes tightly. He’s never letting go.

“Do you want to maybe… listen to some more, with me?” Kei offers, tentatively.

Tobio nods. He wants to listen. He wants Kei’s music to surround him. He wants that stupid fucking godawful voice to serenade him because somehow now the noise isn’t grating. It’s reassuring. He lets it fill his ears and he closes his eyes and relaxes as Kei strokes his thumb against Tobio’s, crooning like he’s dying: _Why don’t we kill each other slowly? What can I say, baby, what can I do? The monster in me loves the monster in you._

Kei has a playlist full of fucked up love songs labeled _Tobio._

Tobio loves him endlessly.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to the [Tobio](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2FPxfNQLXihGGO5e6d55Ag?si=WB8paSx9Q7CfNKcMB-hnKg) playlist here on Spotify.
> 
> View the tracks of the playlist and read my thoughts on them [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1un1TOLpeBER6mBKtgy3NI24vXq-S5nAACXv3YRJXICU/edit?usp=sharing). There are YouTube links in this document if you cannot use Spotify.
> 
> You can follow me [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/kelidahauk) if you appreciate sword kinks, the foes to hoes trope, and excessive profanity.
> 
> We have a TKKG Thirst Discord server! [Come join us to chat about TKKG!](https://discord.gg/7wGBcyH) Only 18+ and older, please; there is a lot of NSFW content there.


End file.
